Canucks Game 81 Preview vs. Sharks: To tank or not to tank

Vancouver Canucks v San Jose Sharks
Vancouver Canucks v San Jose Sharks | Eakin Howard/GettyImages

In what is their penultimate game of the 2024-25 regular season, the Vancouver Canucks host the lowly San Jose Sharks at 7 p.m. at Rogers Arena on Monday night.

A meaningless win to negatively affect draft position could be in the cards, whereas the Sharks are already mathematically locked into last place in the NHL. They're also just 1-7-2 in their last 10 games, so even as injured as the Canucks are, this one is not looking great for the pro-tank crowd.

Canucks Game Lineup

Nils Hoglander - Pius Suter - Conor Garland

Jake DeBrusk - Ty Mueller - Brock Boeser

Dakota Joshua - Aatu Raty - Kiefer Sherwood

Drew O'Connor - Teddy Blueger - Linus Karlsson

Quinn Hughes - Elias Pettersson

Marcus Pettersson - Filip Hronek

Kirill Kudryavtsev - Victor Mancini

Prospect Nikita Tolopilo is confirmed to be the Canucks' starting goalie against the Sharks on Monday night, making his first NHL start and NHL debut in the process.

Tolopilo, 25, is 18-14-2 in 34 games for the Abbotsford Canucks this season, posting a 2.68 GAA, a .901 save percentage, and four shutouts. He will become the second Belarusian goalie to appear in an NHL game after Aleksei Kolosov, who did so in October with the Philadelphia Flyers.

Sharks Game Lineup

William Eklund - Alexander Wennberg - Tyler Toffoli

Nikolai Kovalenko - Macklin Celebrini - Will Smith

Carl Grundstrom - Thomas Bordeleau - Ty Dellandrea

Barclay Goodrow - Zack Ostapchuk - Noah Gregor

Lucas Carlsson - Timothy Liljegren

Henry Thrun - Jan Rutta

Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Jack Thompson

Youngster Georgi Romanov is confirmed to be the Sharks' starting goalie against the Canucks on Monday night. Romanov, 25, is 0-6-0 in eight games with the Sharks this season, putting up a 3.86 GAA and a .877 save percentage. The Russian is just 20-15-13 in 50 career AHL games.

How to watch the Canucks game

Saturday night's Canucks game will be streamed on Sportsnet Pacific and NBC Sports California. For fans unable to watch the Canucks game, Sportsnet 650 will be the radio broadcast available for your listening.

Schedule